Creature From The Black Lagoon
So another slow day, so another silly review. Now I’m sure most of you will see this thing and either laugh or throw up in your mouth. And at one time, I was right there with you. This is another one that I used to make fun of my friend for buying when I was first being exposed to toy collecting. He’d be dropping about $20-25 each on various colorways of this toy and I thought he was dumb. Now they sell for about $50-75 and there’s a bunch I need to get.
This is 13″ tall, made in Mexico out of cheap blow molded polyethylene and has only two points of articulation (the shoulders). The body is a pretty close approximation of the Gill-Man, but the face seems to be based more on the design from The Creature Walks Among Us. Overall, the look is rather silly, but charming in a crude way.
They look particularly good when grouped together.
(Pic from Madman Murphy’s Mixed Up Monster Museum)But believe me when I tell you, this is actually a pretty popular toy among monster and Creature collectors. It sort of makes sense, in a way. In general, it seems the average monster collectors is older than robot collectors and grew up on cheap toys. And Creature collectors will buy most anything related to the character. I’m not sure what my excuse is, though..
I’m not sure exactly how many different colorways were made of this toy and there is some disagreement about when it was made. Some think it was made in the 1960s, some think the ’70s and some think they may still be cranking them out even today. They show up on Ebay fairly regularly. A couple of times a seller even listed ones with bags and header cards, but the general thinking was that the header was fake, just a photocopy from a Mexican lobby card. I can’t confirm that one way or another.
So, in conclusion, I certainly don’t expect any of our readers to fall in love with this right away and run out to buy one. But maybe over time it’s goofiness will grow on you like it did me. In the meantime, consider the point of this review to once again say simply….”this exists”.
